I resigned from Rothschild to start a company

Woozy, although I love Singapore - it's my favorite city in the world, I am now living in Hong Kong.

I was just in Singapore again a couple of weeks ago, though. It is really a special place - every street is like a garden, the whole city is so beautiful and clean and relaxed, the food is amazing, and I actually like the weather there. I hope you are enjoying it!

Edmundo, Uber is in a similar space, but providing a very different kind of experience. Rickshaw is different because:

• Drivers are community members - maybe even your neighbors. This keeps the platform friendly and casual
• Our diverse drivers have diverse cars, whereas I believe Uber just offers standard executive cars and (even more expensive SUVs)
• You always have the benchmark of a local taxi price and can call the local taxi company right from the app
• Price transparency. Uber has had a lot of difficulties with this, particularly due to their surge pricing. Rickshaw passengers clearly know the price before they accept a ride. No tips are added to the bid price (while Uber automatically adds 20% tip)
• While even Uber might face volume problems during peak hours, the way that Rickshaw works actually does better in peak hours, since we have drivers who are leaving the office at 5:30pm and looking to provide rides exactly when the taxis and ubers are straining to meet demand
• Price. Uber is really really expensive. I guess for some of the bankers on WSO, it might be ok, but even for a junior banker, Uber is quite expensive. Rickshaw, which relies on community drivers is much more reasonably priced, and depending on where you are, may likely be cheaper than a taxi.
• I believe that Uber passengers can only pay by credit card, while Rickshaw passengers can pay with either cash or credit card. In China (we will be launching our China version soon), users will be able to pay with the domestic 支付宝 payment system
• Uber is still really only in the major cities, while Rickshaw passengers have access to our very accurate and totally proprietary database of nearly 1,000 local taxi companies throughout N. America, Europe and Asia Pacific, so even if there might not be a driver bidding on your ride in some town in the Czech Republic, there is a very good chance we can tell you how much a taxi will cost for your ride, and you can easily call that taxi right from the app
• Although it may not be a concern for everyone, the Rickshaw system is significantly more environmentally friendly. Ubers and taxis drive around most of the day burning gas, looking for passengers, while Rickshaw drivers go direct to provide the ride when and where it is requested and are not just cruising around for hours.
• Although I have no data on Uber drivers, Rickshaw drivers earn significantly more than taxi drivers on a per/hr basis. Rickshaw drivers retain 85% of their completed fairs, while most taxi drivers retain less than 50%

There are other nice differentiations, but these are the main ones.

@stvr2013, On the regulatory side, it entirely depends on literally each local (often even town-level) jurisdiction. It is unclear how many town governments well really step in and try to stop a safe, voluntary and efficient market place for transportation that (1) provides convenient and pleasant self-employment to their local people, (2) provides more efficient transportation options for their local people, and (3) facilitates their local people connecting for a greater sense of community. The current taxi regimes in many cities (as repeatedly stated by the FTC) is terribly monopolistic and harms both drivers (who themselves as individuals end up earning less than half of their fares) and the passengers (who end up paying much higher prices, and who receive much lower quality service and are limited to far fewer options).

Furthermore, in the state of California, this type of transport system that Rickshaw facilitates is actually formally legal at the current time. The Seattle government along with several other local level governments have chosen to remain silent as they take the "sit-and-observe" approach to this new system of getting around.

On the pure safety side, which is related to some of the regulatory ideology, you can take a look at our website which has more detailed information, but a short overview would be (1) the passenger can always call the local taxi company right from the app and there is a database of nearly 1,000 local taxi companies all over N America, Europe and Asia Pacific with quite accurate pricing information, (2) Before accepting a ride, both driver and passenger can view the entire ratings history of the other party, just like you might view the ratings history of an Amazon seller or ebay seller, (3) the passenger can see clearly which drivers are certified and therefore have gone through more thorough background checks and interviews, (4) the passenger can also view photos of the driver's car, as well as the car's make, model, year, and license plate, (5) if any problem shall arise, there is an entire formal complaint interface built into the app; admin will be notified immediately when a complaint is made and the users can choose to even come to an agreed settlement to the dispute all within the app, (6) if there is a more serious problem, there is a much better chance that the perpetrator can be found as there is just so much more data and transparency in the Rickshaw system as compared to the normal taxi system, where you have never seen your taxi driver before and will never see your taxi driver again and probably would have a hard time even tracking down your forgotten luggage. It would be difficult for someone to evade the data trail after providing dangerous or even unsatisfactory or unfriendly service.

@Woozy, Singaporean taxi drivers are doing quite alright, relative to international peers. Last year, there was even some discussion in the local media of one particular taxi driver earning SG$7,000/month, although many (including me) doubt the validity of this particular claim.

@BTbanker Actually during my second year, Rothschild invited me to join their newly created US$300m PE fund up in China, which I did enjoy before the three co-shareholders decided to pull the plug on the whole fund and I returned to IBD in Singapore.

Of course the career gains (and skill gains, and general life experience gains) are extremely important, which I believe I mention in my posting above. However, I believe most people would agree that the work dynamics of IBD (particularly at the analyst level) are not particularly entrepreneurial, unfortunately.

@animalz I think this is a very important and very common problem faced by people who have a good tech idea, but are not themselves capable of technically constructing the idea. I will try to put together a good post addressing this sometime in the next month or two. Please let me know of any other particular issues you would like me to address.

@CountryUnderdog My co-founder is a lawyer and she will be managing from our side if face any such issues.

In the meantime, I believe we have built a safer, more transparent, and more secure transport system than the current taxi systems in most cities. I have posted above on some of the safety points, but there are some additional points on our website. We take safety really seriously.

@Dubya We are a communications platform which enables independent community members to better coordinate with the people around them in order to create a more efficient, safe, transparent and friendly market for transport

Drivers and passengers are responsible for their own actions. We have developed pretty robust system to increase the safety of both drivers and passengers, but it is up to individuals to make their own decisions. I have posted above several points on our platform's safety and there is some more on this subject on our website.

@cass - great questions. I will address these in a future WSO post. Please add here any additional questions you have.

@tom collins After a driver has achieved 20 reviews with an average review of 4 stars or more, they are invited to apply to become a Certified Rickshaw Driver. The certification process will entail a Skype interview as well as a background check which will include the driver's driving violation history and/or criminal record, depending on the driver's location. The driver's ratings history, history of ride cancellations, history of formal disputes on the Rickshaw platform, an interview, and further background checks will enable us to make a decision on whether or not to grant the driver Certified Rickshaw Driver status.

If the driver becomes a Certified Rickshaw Driver, an "R" icon will appear next to their name whenever they are bidding for a new ride and passengers will have additional confidence in accepting their bids.

If a passenger wishes to only accept bids from Certified Rickshaw Drivers, they can clearly see the status of each bidding driver and can always easily call the local taxi company right from the app if no satisfactory bids are received.

@thecoldburns Debt Advisory is a part of Rothschild Singapore, but it is often integrated into the other areas such as raising debt for acqusition financing, together with the RTH M&A team, or raising debt for project finance, together with the industry/corp fin team. There are also "pure" debt advisory mandates, but Rothschild certainly does quite a lot of M&A, ECM, etc.

@Firefox All drivers must have a valid drivers license and upload a photo of their license during driver registration. We then check the drivers license to see if it matches with the other registration details provided. Also, these are community drivers, and not "taxi" drivers. Just like AirBnB connects you with community hosts rather than "hotels"

Even before AirBnb, I remember hearing about Couchsurfing (https://www.couchsurfing.org/) and I was shocked that people would actually go and sleep on some stranger's couch. I thought that - surely - people would wake up with missing kidneys - i mean you are putting yourself alone in a stranger's living room at night.

However, when I was traveling in Indonesia, I met several couchsurfers and the whole thing appeared to be working great - the backpackers were really connecting with the local people who were really showing them the local scene in a way that would not be accessible if you were staying in a backpacking hostel.

Couchsurfing has been going pretty strong among the young backpacking community and as you know the more high-end AirBnB has been doing spectacularly. I think we don't give our fellow humans enough credit for being genuinely friendly, responsible, and hospitable.

Actually - even further back in time - do you remember when eBay came out? At that time, nobody would expect someone to actually pay money for some used stuff sent from another person in Oklahoma. Or even further back, when people started buying anything online at all from any website, most people were extremely cautious. But times change and people realize that these new transparent markets make their lives a lot better.

@brutalglide Yes, it is a very active space and becoming even more crowded, however the vast majority of the players are near replicas of each other, simply focusing on different local geographies with the same exact model.

I have not yet seen any other player approaching this problem like we are. I, of course, believe that we have the better approach, but in the end it comes down to execution.

As for your point on the regulatory front, I believe that under the current view of CA state law, even Rickshaw would be technical legal. In other locations, as you may know, the local governments have simply looked the other way. In some other locations, the taxi lobby is fighting hard. However, I believe that the power of the taxi lobbies will not prevail in the medium term since a system like Rickshaw would be much better for the local people who elect the local government officials. Already, these taxi monopolies are coming under significant fire by competition authorities, passengers, drivers, and more recently from some of the better financed transport apps which are breaking the door down for the industry in general.

Also, while we are launching first in the US, our key focus markets will not actually be in the US, but will instead be in some select other locations which are more culturally used to the idea of "unofficial" taxis.

As for the payments issue, this game that SideCar and Lyft are playing with "donations" is, of course, very thinly veiled payment for service. I believe the donation system is less good for both passengers and drivers and I am sure it will not stay around for too much longer. I believe Rickshaw's approach to pricing through a bidding system, supplemented by an accurate taxi price benchmark, is far more transparent and better for the whole community.

@cavdaily Thanks for your questions. I will put together a good posting in the next one or two months outlining some practical methods you can use to find programmers and manage the development etc. As for the crossover from finance to tech, a lot of the (actually really important) soft skills are still there, such as attention to minute details, dealing with a lot of data, and of course, hard work.

Good question - I will address this in my next post

@Robb9 Thanks a lot! Currently we are only supporting USD transactions and only in the US, however we have already built the international version (including SGD compatibility) and are currently just testing it before probably releasing the international version next week. You can go ahead, download the app and register, although we have not yet officially rolled out in Singapore yet.

We are curious whether or not we can make a market in Singapore (and Hong Kong), where transport is already so widely available and quite cheap, and where individual car ownership is extremely expensive. Still, I have a lot of personal experience waiting for 1 HOUR + for a taxi from One Raffles Quay on Friday nights. Even on other nights, it can sometimes be really difficult to get a taxi from ORQ when demand peaks.

Rickshaw, on the other hand, tends to work well during demand peak times, since that is actually when we see our supply peak, as more of our drivers are, themselves, getting out of the office and are available to provide rides to the other people who are also getting out of the office.

@ConsolationFS China will probably be the most interesting market for us. If the local governments actually wanted to crack down on the many many vastly overpriced and untrustworthy 黑车 that are freely and openly operating at any train station, airport, etc. they could easily do so. As you may know, even in many Beijing suburbs, 黑车 are often the standard mode of transport since taxis are just unavailable. In Shenzhen, even the standard taxis sometimes operate like 黑车, scalping and negotiating for prices many times the actual fares.

I agree that this may be a grey area, but 因为中国很多城市现在的出租车不能满足市民出行需求，因此中国国内的黑车市场非常大。但是这不仅仅是现在暂时的问题或者是中国的问题，即使是像伦敦这样发达国家的城市也有很多黑车。黑车的问题在于黑车的运营，价格，司机信息及其他信息是完全不透明的，但是我们的Rickshaw(中文名字是”立刻到“)是更加透明，公平，便宜，方便及友好的。

我们将很快在中国大陆发布，我们在“立刻到”的中国大陆版本中完全嵌入了支付宝的支付功能。请发给我PM，告诉我您的电子邮件地址，我将在"立刻到"的中国大陆版本发布之时即时通知您。

@seville When I was an investment banker, I certainly earned enough compensation that now, compensation is not what I am thinking about.

You can be employed by other people, or you can employ yourself. When you employ yourself, you will feel infinitely more happy with any dollar you earn.